Greg Bailey

Greg Bailey is Adjunct Associate Professor of Linguistics, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University.  His main field of interest is ancient India literature and history.

Greg's recent articles

GREG BAILEY. Australia and Canada: Mirrors of each other

Australia and Canada have considerable similarities in a whole range of areas, and both share serious relations with the recalcitrant United States, becoming increasingly more erratic under the ideological sway of the Republican Party and its current leadership. Yet what do most Australians know about this country on the other side of the world, from which we might learn much, as a partial mirror of ourselves?

Greg Bailey. The IPA, Gina Rinehart and Transparency.

The Institute of Public Affairs and Gina Rinehart seem to be inextricably connected. In the last two weeks it has been revealed she gave a donation to the IPA which amounted to half of their entire budget for two years. Yet the source of this donation was not revealed on the IPA web site. Given the IPAs influence on the present government, should it not be much more transparent in its revelation of those who in turn influence it?

GREG BAILEY. Are Public Servants too elitist? What should their role be?

A recent article published on The Conversation found attitudes of elitism among public servants, which effectively led them to resist public input and that A clear democratic conduit between citizen and policymaker is largely absent. But is this the best way to understand the present status of the Public service and public servants attitudes?

GREG BAILEY. Class Warfare As a Rhetorical Device.

Now that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party have begun to propose some sensible restrictions on the irresponsible tax reductions proposed by the LNP government the old adage of class warfare is being invoked again in the mainstream media and by hard right politicians. But how useful is this as a rhetorical device and will it have any resonance for anybody other than those who use it?

GREG BAILEY. The IPA and the Survival of the ABC.

Two prominent members of the IPA have just edited a book calling for the privatization of the ABC. This has long been a desire of this group, but with Minister Mitch Fifield, an IPA member, now taking the role of the LNP governments attack dog against the ABC, is privatization a possibility?

GREG BAILEY. John Lloyd and the IPA: Friends of the Public Service?

As if the Public Service did not have enough pressure placed on it - over the past three decades it has been politicized, it has been continually downsized and its professionalism has been called into question by an homogenous collection of party hacks, consultants and lobbyists, perhaps picking up on a long-standing public disdain for the efficiency of public servants. If this is not enough, it is now under attack from John Lloyd, Commissioner, Australian Public Service Commission, and at times an IPA member.

GREG BAILEY. The Business Council of Australia, a new political body appealing to the small business constituency?

The Business Council of Australia has hit the electronic and print media in the past few days, but for all the wrong reasons. It has been accused of setting itself up to run political campaigns along the lines of the main parties and the ACTU. Why is it doing this now and why is it trying to broaden its appeal beyond its traditional constituency of corporations, the large consultancy firms and big business in general?

GREG BAILEY. The Institute of Public Affairs, finance and the contradiction between individualism and corporatism.

Readers of Pearls and Irritations will be fully appreciative of the considerable influence exercised by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) on the commentariat and political decision-making through its representatives in various parliaments and its presence in the media. And given its discernible influence or occasional lack of it witness James Patersons aborted attempt to neuter the outcome of the marriage equality survey on shaping political opinion, we might ask whether it too will be required to open the books relating to its financial sources as part of an investigation of foreign influence on Australian lobby groups. If...

GREG BAILEY. On the Importance and the Difficulty of Renewing Australian Democracy

John Menadue has offered a series of nine excellent practical proposals as to how the current two party system which has virtually assumed monopoly status as a duopolymight be converted into a multi-party system. This would seemingly reflect the real concerns of Australian voters whose voting patterns by the increasing percentage of votes going to minor parties show increasing support for a multiparty system. But can the very useful suggestion of a professional and independent review of our parliament and the democratic renewal really come to fruition and what would be needed to bring it into operation?

GREG BAILEY. Lobbyists and the Privatisation of the Political Process

Recent exposures of the extent of lobbying in Canberra and the revolving door of politicians becoming lobbyists highlight the extent to which politics here and in other Anglo-Saxon countries has become privatized. The effectiveness of the lobbyistswho are essentially mercenariesposes a threat to democratic process and contributes strongly to what I call the privatization of politics. Government has always to some extent been an oligopoly of vested interests. Lobbyists have cemented this situation even further.

GREG BAILEY. Populist Limitations on the role of the IPA in the New LNP government

On July 2 the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) had at least two of its members elected to parliament in the Double Dissolution, James Pattison and Tim Wilson and that Senators Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm, at times members of the IPA, also were reelected, albeit on small quotas. LNP politicians like George Christensen and Cory Bernardi, both assumed to be thorns in the side of Malcolm Turnbull, have received the praises of the IPA because of speeches they have given, echoing broad IPA doctrines such as small government, abolition of the nanny state and individual self-reliance. But the propitious...

Greg Bailey. The Liberal Party and the Institute of Public Affairs. Who is Whose?

Arguably the most influential think tank in Australia over the last decade, the Melbourne based Institute of Public Affairs, serves good beer at its functions, so I have been told. Whilst it has always been significant in pushing right wing, neo-liberal agendas, it is only in the last decade, and really during the last period of Liberal government, since October 2013, that it has emerged from the dim shadows into the brightness of political life. Previously it functioned mainly as a pressure group that would provide some kind of intellectual substance to the economic and lobbying interests of the large...

Greg Bailey. Lobbyists and Consultants.

Current Affairs. John Menadue has written an excellent summary of what might originally have been a problem of the sociology of knowledge, where particular groups in society appropriate the debates relating to public policy. They usually ignore the intellectual currents that lie more deeply behind these policies, even though they have been strongly influenced by them. Whilst it is the task of intellectuals to expose these currents, it should be the task of public servants to assess their validity, when translated into specific policy recommendations, for implementation in the public sphere. In 2000 I published a book applying technical...

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